veteran

VA service representatives can answer questions about benefits eligibility and application procedures. Contact the nearest VA benefits office at 1-800-827-1000 from any location in the United States and Puerto Rico. VA facilities also are listed in the federal government section of telephone directories under “Veterans Affairs”. Included Forms (Always check here VA Forms first to make sure you have the most recent copy of the form

Section 301 of Public Law 109-461 adds a new category to the definition of “eligible person” for DEA benefits . The new category includes the spouse or child of a person who: VA determines has a service-connected permanent and total disability; and at the time of VA’s determination is a member of the Armed Forces who is hospitalized or receiving outpatient medical care, services, or treatment; and is likely to be discharged or released from service for this service-connected disability. Persons eligible under this new provision may be eligible for DEA benefits effective December 23, 2006, the effective date of the law. For more information contact your local VA office. See HERE.

This worksheet, provided by the National Cancer Institutes brochure on Coping with Advanced Cancer can help in organizing one’s personal affairs. This sheet provides information for organizing the paper work that will be helpful for family members after a death. It starts on page 50 if you print it out, in the PDF document it is on page 56.

DEPENDENT OR SURVIVOR The Veterans Benefits Administration offers a variety of benefits and services to spouses, children, and parents of Service members and Veterans who are deceased or totally and permanently disabled by a service-connected disability. One of the more difficult tasks a survivor faces after the death of the veteran is completing the numerous claims forms for VA survivors’ benefits. The anxiety and fear of the unknown – who to call, what to do, or where to go for help – can be an unpleasant experience. To help ease the burden and to ensure you will have the necessary details for filing a claim, here are some basic quick tips.

VA service representatives can answer questions about benefits eligibility and application procedures. Contact the nearest VA benefits office at 1-800-827-1000 from any location in the United States and Puerto Rico. VA facilities also are listed in the federal government section of telephone directories under “Veterans Affairs”.

Bereavement Counseling at Veterans Centers – The Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) offers bereavement counseling to parents, spouses and children of Armed Forces personnel who died in the service of their country. Also eligible are family members of reservists and National Guardsmen who die while on duty.

Find out about The Veterans Center (For me personally they have been an oasis in a crazy maze. – (Tbird Founder HadIt.com Veteran To Veteran LLC)

There are many legal matters surrounding the death of a person. Some of these matters can be dealt with prior to death, others after the death. This section looks at the reading of the will, disposition of the dying person’s property and assets during probate. It also underscores the importance of Advanced Care Planning, Advance Care Directives, Living Wills, Power of Attorney and Living Trusts.

A look at the “Put It In Writing” consumer outreach by your guide. This initiative was created in 2005 by the American Hospital Association supported by the Society of Hospital Medicine to teach the public about the importance of Advance Care Planning.

This page provides a starting point in figuring out the differences between Advanced Care Directives, Living Wills and Durable Power of Attorney. Information is taken from the ADAM Health Center Encyclopedia.

This worksheet, provided by the National Cancer Institutes brochure on Coping with Advanced Cancer can help in organizing one’s personal affairs. This sheet provides information for organizing the paper work that will be helpful for family members after a death. It starts on page 50 if you print it out, in the PDF document it is on page 56.

Do’s and Don’ts – VA Compensation Pension Exam

The following is written from a VA Compensation and Pension Examiners perspective relating to psychiatric exams. It is a good guideline for all exams but I only did psych exams. I’ve been examined by the VA for multiple problems and this is my format when I go to be examined. A little common sense and clarity of thinking will go a long ways towards getting you what you are entitled. Written by: Steve A. Neff MSW

This person is going to judge you. It’s his/her job and that is why you are there. To be adjudicated fairly. How would you like to be remembered? A skuzzy stereotypical veteran? Or a troubled one who is doing the best he/she can?

Do not talk about alcohol or drug related issues. You are not there to be assessed for those problems. You are there to be assessed for your psychiatric functioning as today relates to your service history. If the examiner asks about alcohol or drugs, politely remind them that you are not there for those issues, if you’ve ever had them, but for how impaired you are in your daily functioning. It’s best to avoid even talking about them.Got a VA horror story? I can tell you a worse one. Don’t waste your time with how badly you believe you’ve been mistreated. The examiner only has a short time to figure out how impaired you are and they need the facts. In coherent, concise, sentences, and not rambling rants that lead nowhere.

Answer the questions to the best of your ability. If you don’t know say so. This is nearly a no brainer but be honest. Don’t embellish your stories with fanciful tales. Just the facts please.

Be able to document everything you tell the examiner. You may run into someone like me who checked stories out. If possible have letters from people you served with, unit diary copies of incidents that occurred during your time and space, and letters from family members. Family member letters usually don’t add a lot of weight to your case because families are there to support you and examiners understand that.

When responding to examiners you need to pick the worst moment of time relating to that question. You need to be rated for the worst times you have had. I always picked a really bad day and related all of my answers to that day. The day I could not sleep, was anxious and startled easily, was grouchy to my wife and friends, felt like my heart was coming out of my chest, and nothing went right for me. That day should have been in the last 30-90 days. If it was a year ago you may not need to be having this exam. The questions you are being asked are on a script in front of the examiner. After examiners do this for a while they get a sense of what is in front of them. It’s not too difficult to determine when someone is flat-out lying and when they are struggling with memory. The above does not mean that examiners cannot be scammed because they can be.

You should expect the examiner performing your medical examination to evaluate the condition(s) listed on your claim for benefits. Depending on the number and type of disabilities claimed, the length of the examination will vary. Psychiatric examination or that for multiple disabilities requires more time to evaluate. The examiner may ask more questions about your disability history, review pertinent medical records, or order additional testing or examinations, if necessary. I discovered veterans that were lying and dealt with them by reporting this to the proper authorities at the VA. It’s a Federal criminal act to lie in order to gain monetary compensation. And the odds are you will be prosecuted. It simply isn’t worth it.

Examiners are generally good people trying to do a very difficult job. Make it easy for them. I always advocated having the individual’s husband/wife in the room with me during the exam. As an examiner I enjoyed having someone’s spouse with them. Husbands and wives can tell the truth much better than the veteran. Ask your wife how well you’ve done in the past ten days versus your own opinion of how you’ve been doing. Quite a dramatic difference if you are truthful!

Remember to report how you REALLY are doing and not how you’d like to be doing. One of the questions I always had a hard time asking was, “How are you doing today?” Most veterans want to be doing MUCH better than they really are. It’s like we know we can be doing better, and have done better, but our pride does not want to let anyone know how badly we really are doing. Veterans would answer the above question with, “Well I’m doing pretty good.” Should I write down that, “The veteran reports that he is doing pretty good?” Not if you want your claim adjudicated fairly.

The best answer I ever got from a veteran was a former Marine Vietnam Veteran who said,

“If I’m here I can’t be doing very well now can I? I haven’t been able to sleep for the past ten days over worrying about this exam, my wife says I’m really grumpy, and the bill collectors call all of the time.”

What this veteran just told me was he couldn’t sleep due to anxiety, the heart of PTSD, was depressed (remember grumpy?), another key facet of PTSD, and he’s had problems with his work history if he can’t pay his bills. He wasn’t angry about what he said. He was so matter of fact it took me a bit to realize what he had said. He could have been talking about having a cup of coffee for all of the emotion he expressed.

These are things I can explore further with the veteran. I don’t have to hunt or pull teeth for information. This veteran controlled the exam because he was clear about his problems and knew what he wanted to say. I spent some extra time with him. In the end he ended up 100% service-connected for PTSD. He had his ducks in a row, paperwork all present, and had done enough clinical work prior to the exam that he knew what his problems were and more importantly how to express them to another person.

Today, I want to talk to you about a question that a lot of Veterans ask me:If I get a 100% rating, should I continue fighting the Veterans Affairs for benefits?Let’s jump right into the answer. Many Veterans perceive the 100% rating as the end of the line. The sign of victory over the Hamster Wheel. But….….is it REALLY over when you get to 100%? Well, the hard part sure is over….but I think that there are several reasons to keep on fighting – even after you reach the 100%. Let me tell you about 6 of those reasons…[Reprinted here with permission from Veterans Law Blog ]

Scenario #1: 100% TDIU May Not be Permanent.

There are several paths to a 100% rating in VA Compensation – one of the most common is the TDIU 100%.

When a Veteran is awarded TDIU, there is no guarantee that TDIU 100% will last forever.

In fact, if the Veteran does not submit the annual income statements, or if the VA gets evidence that the Veteran is engaged in substantially gainful employment, the VA could reduce the Veteran’s rating to the combined rating in place prior to the TDIU grant.

It is almost always preferable to have a schedular 100% – meaning that your 100% rating is based on the schedule of impairment ratings for disabilities, and not on the circumstances of your employment.

So, even if you get approved for 100% based on TDIU, you might want to give serious consideration to pursuing a schedular 100% rating.

Scenario #2: A 100% rating doesn’t get you the right Effective Dates.

When I teach Veterans how to pursue an appeal for a denied claim, here’s the “order of battle” I teach:

Get your medical conditions service connected.

Make sure the VA assigns the correct Impairment Rating.

Fight forthe earliest effective date possible.

Those last 2 often go hand in hand. But, many times, the VA will grant you a 100% rating – TDIU or schedular – and not give you the earliest effective date possible. At 100%, past due benefits can really start to add up.

Using the 2014 disability rate tables, a single Veteran loses out on $2,906.83 for each month. If the Veteran misses your correct effective date by 1 year, this means they are shorting a single Veteran $34,881.96.Double that for 2 years.

My point is this – just because the VA got your rating to 100% doesn’t mean that they gave you the right effective date. If you give up the fight early, you might be leaving a lot of benefits on the table.

Scenario #3: Special Monthly Compensation

Not many Veterans have ever heard of Special Monthly Compensation.And so many Veterans don’t pursue it when they get their 100% rating.

Special Monthly Compensation is complicated – but generally, it works like this.

When a Veteran receives a 100% rating, the VA is supposed to consider whether they might be eligible for additional payments known as Special Monthly Compensation.

There are many different kinds of Special Monthly Compensation (SMC), but here are a few:

Statutory SMC – also known as SMC(s) is one of the more common types of SMC. It is commonly known as “Statutory/Housebound” SMC, because there are 2 ways to get it.

First, when a single Veteran with no kids has one 100% rating, and at least a 60% rating for a wholly separate condition/disability, that Veteran is entitled to an additional $347 a month in VA disability (using the rating tables effective 12/1/2014). This is the “Statutory” method of getting SMC(s).

VA Disability Rating for PTSD: Non-Combat Stressor

Do you have Non-Combat VA PTSD disability claim? Ever try to convince the VA that your non-combat stressor event occurred?

It’s a lot harder for non-combat Veterans – if you didn’t serve in combat, the VA isn’t going to take your word for it: you have to prove to the VA that the stressor event occurred. It’s really hard, isn’t it?

Today I want to talk about a new case out of the CAVC that requires the VA to go even FURTHER in its Duty to Assist the Veteran.

Basically, this is a DoD facility that does not store, but does have access to, information from tens of thousands of military units over several decades.

Neat, right?

Problem is, you can’t get access to it.Only the VA Can.

This is what the JSRRC says:

“When the Regional Office determines information from military unit records is necessary to process a claim, the Regional Office will request this assistance from JSRRC.”

Think of the JSRRC as a secret book – only the JSRRC can look at it, only the JSRRC knows what is in it, and only the VA can ask the JSRRC to search the “secret book” for evidence that the event occurred.

The VA has long used this power as a way to deny Veterans claims for PTSD in non-combat scenario. And they play the game the same way in almost every single case.

Here’s how the VA’s JSRRC PTSD Disability Stressor Game is Played.

It is played the same way in claim after claim after claim…..

* Veteran gives the details of an event that occurred outside of combat – a common scenario is witnessing a training death.

* The Veteran – due to the passage of time, the symptomatology of your VA PTSD disability, or basic human brainpower – forgets the precise date that the event occurred.

* The VA barks and hollers in it’s “Duty to Assist” letters that it needs the Veteran to define a60 day window in which the event occurred, or they cannot ask the JSRRC to corroborate the stressor.

(Again, a made up excuse, as I’ll explain in a minute).

* When the Veteran can’t provide the exact 60-day window, the VA denies for failure to cooperate, or on the grounds it cannot fulfill the DTA without more information, or on the grounds that it cannot corroborate the alleged stressor event.

This is absurd, by the way – to require a Veteran to remember the specific date of an event or pinpoint a 60 day window when something happened.

The year before Obama was inaugurated into Presidency, I witnessed a drunk driver strike and kill the driver of a car stopped right in front of me. Every detail of the incident replays in my mind like a movie scene I cannot forgot.But you could offer me a million dollars to tell you what month it happened and all I can tell you (without doing a lot of digging) is that it was sometime in 2008. And the only reason I remember that is that I was interviewed by the Prosecuting Attorney prosecuting the drunk driver on the day of Obama’s inauguration.

That’s human memory folks – most of us don’t remember exact dates of even memorable incidents.

Guys….how many of our wives get on us for forgetting our anniversaries?

Gals – how many of you forget that you promised to let us watch college football all day every Saturday, without a honey-do list? See….forgot you promised that, didn’t you?

Back to our scenario – when the VA played its JSRRC 60-day window game with one Veteran, he had enough.

Veteran David Gagne had enough of the VA’s little JSRRC game, and appealed his PTSD Disability denial to the CAVC.

As a result, we have a new rule of law which says exactly what the VA has to do to fulfill the Duty to Assist.

One day, he watched a truck back into and kill an NCO on the site.The Veteran filed a claim for VA PTSD compensation years later, after he realized this incident was why he was having suicidal ideation and other symptoms of a PTSD disability.

The VA refused to ask JSRRC to verify the stressor, because the Veteran could not remember the 60-day window in which the event occurred.

Instead, the VA denied the claim for a failure to locate credible evidence of the stressor event.

The Veteran called “bullshit” – on appeal to the Court, he argued (through an outstanding advocate named Amy Odom at the NVLSP) that the VA’s Duty to Assist couldn’t be limited to 60 day windows.

The Veteran pointed out that the Duty to Assist is fulfilled only when future efforts to obtain records would be futile, or it is established to a reasonably degree of certainty that the records do not exist.

The VA, on the other hand, argued it was futile to ask the JSRRC to search through a years worth of records for a particular incident when the JSRRC and the VA had previously decided that it was easiest and most efficient for them to search in 60-day windows.

The VA’s attorneys – the Office of General Counsel – made the Veteran’s attorney brief the case, and go to oral arguments.

Only after oral arguments did the VA realize how bad its arguments were.

So, shortly after those arguments, the VA changed its position – expressly conceding that it failed to fulfill the Duty to Assist by not searching through the records as requested by the Veteran.

As an aside, the Veteran’s case was at the court for 20 months – since February 2014.

The Court ultimately made it clear that the VA’s Duty to Assist in asking the JSRRC for evidence corroborating a stressor was NOT limited to 60 day increments: the VA fulfilled its Duty to Assist in 2 scenarios:

Scenario 1: It is reasonably certain that the records sought do not exist

Scenario 2: Future efforts to find the records would be futile.

By the way – and this is VERY helpful in any Duty to Assist Argument – the court defined the word futile as “serving no useful purpose; completely ineffective”.

How to use this decision in your case:

1) Do you have a non-combat stressor event for your VA PTSD disability?

You’ve just been rated 100% disabled by the Veterans Affairs. After the excitement of finally having the rating you deserve wears off, you start asking questions. One of the first questions that you might ask is this: It’s a legitimate question – rare is the Veteran that finds themselves sitting on the couch eating bon-bons after being rated 100% disabled.

Some Veterans like to work just for the sake of having something to do.
Other Veterans like to work for non-profits or other organizations that provide a public service …. after all, Veterans as a community are more heavily oriented to public service than many other groups of people.

Yet other Veterans still like to keep doing the job that they did, as they find that the income from even a 100% VA disability rating is not enough to cover all their expense.

Whether the family’s bills, funding college educations for kids and grand-kids, medical bills for spouses and children, or paying off the mountains of debt that have likely built up in the 5-10 years you have probably been waiting for the Veterans Affairs to get off it’s arse and make the right decision….100% disability rating is barely enough money to live off.

So, here’s the answer…and it’s a lawyers FAVORITE answer….It Depends. Whether a 100 percent Disabled Veteran can work turns on the answer to this question: Are you getting a 100% schedular rating, or 100% unemployability (aka, TDIU or IU)?

Veterans that Receive 100% Schedular Ratings have NO Limitations on Their Ability to Work.

Veterans are rated for their Veterans Affairs Disability based on a set of tables known as the VA Impairment Rating Tables. These are also known as the “Schedule of Ratings”. So, if your 100% VA Disability Rating comes because you qualify for the 100% rating specified for a single (or combination of multiple) service-connected conditions using the Schedule of Ratings, then you have NO limitations on your ability to work.

Some Veterans think that this doesn’t make sense: after all, if you are 100% disabled, that means you can’t do anything, right? This is one of the problems with the VA Disability Compensation system – for years, we have been led to believe that the percentage of rating equates to a percentage of how much our body is disabled.

In reality, the percentage of your disability rating means that you have had that percentage of interference with your ability to earn an income.

So a Veteran whose service connected condition equates to a 100% disability rating is not – in the eyes of the law – 100% disabled. Instead, in the eyes of the law, the Veteran’s ability to earn an income has been 100% interfered with.

In theory, you could make $1,000,000 a minute and still collect a 100% Veterans Affairs Disability Schedular Rating. Of course, to make that kind of money, you’d probably have to become a Congressional representative, and put your hand into the pocket of some pretty unseemly political and lobbying organizations. But the point is the same: Veterans that Receive 100% Schedular Ratings have NO Limitations on Their Ability to Work or earn an income.

Can a Veteran Earn an Income while Receiving VA TDIU Benefits?

To those of you trying to win your VA TDIU Claim, I encourage you to consider whether a copy of the VA TDIU Field Manual, or the VA TDIU eBook Package – will help you understand and improve your VA TDIU Claims.

38 C.F.R. §4.16(a) – the section of the Code of Federal Regulations that states the requirements for eligibility for TDIU Benefits, states the following:

Total disability ratings for compensation may be assigned, where the schedular rating is less than total, when the disabled person is, in the judgment of the rating agency, unable to secure or follow a substantially gainful occupation as a result of service-connected disabilities.

38 C.F.R. §4.16(a) – Marginal employment shall NOT be considered substantially gainful employment. For purposes of this section, marginal employment generally shall be deemed to exist when a veteran’s earned annual income does not exceed the amount established by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, as the poverty threshold for one person. Marginal employment may also be held to exist, on a facts found basis (includes but is not limited to employment in a protected environment such as a family business or sheltered workshop), when earned annual income exceeds the poverty threshold. (emphasis is mine).

So there you have it – the 2 ways that Veteran can earn an income while receiving VA TDIU benefits: when the employment is “marginal” and when the employment is “sheltered”.

We’ll look at them in more detail, below.

You might ask “Why” a Veteran is allowed to earn an income in these 2 scenarios while receiving TDIU Benefits.

Truth be told, I have no clue why Congress wrote the laws this way when they wrote them – someday I’ll dig into the legislative history to understand it.

But since Congress allowed it, there is NOTHING wrong with Veterans getting Marginal or Sheltered Employment income while receiving TDIU Benefits.

#1: Marginal Employment & TDIU Benefits.

This is the type of income that many Veterans are aware that they can receive even after being granted TDIU Benefits.

You will see that, for 2014, the poverty threshold for one person is $12,316 per year (if you are under 65), or $11,354 (if you are over 65).

Each year, the VA will ask you to verify your employment (or lack thereof) to determine whether you are eligible to continue to receive TDIU Benefits. They typically require that you use VA Form 21-4140 or 21-4140-1 to do this report.

The VA does cross check 2 databases that I know of: Social Security databases that record your work/income history, and IRS databases that record your family income on your annual tax returns. Word to the wise: if you are telling different income stories to different federal agencies, you are playing with fire, and may even be committing fraud.

If you indicate in this form that your income is higher than the poverty threshold, a proposal to reduce your TDIU benefits will be forthcoming.

It’s one of the few times that the VA acts with a sense of purpose – when they want to STOP paying you.

#2: Sheltered Employment & TDIU Benefits

Another way that Veterans can earn an income while receiving TDIU Benefits is by participating in what is called “sheltered employment”.

There are many ways that your income can be considered “sheltered”, but 2 that are clearly identified in the regulation itself:

Now, just because you are working for a family business doesn’t mean your job is considered “sheltered employment”. It has to be what the regulation refers to as a “protected environment”.

A protected environment occurs when the employer makes special accommodations to employ and provide an income for a family member or a disabled worker. This happens quite a lot – a family business, to reduce its tax burden or simply to help another family member, pays a disabled Veteran family member an income that they would not otherwise be able to receive.

How can you tell if there is a protected work environment?

What kind of questions would you ask, and what kind of evidence would you need?

If you can get answers to these kinds of questions – typically in an affidavit by the business owner or the executive in charge of hiring/staffing – you will have a much stronger proof of entitlement to TDIU benefits even while earning an income well above the poverty threshold in a sheltered employment situation.

1) Did they employer provide any special accommodations (especially if they are not required to by the Americans With Disabilities Act) to accommodate the employee with disabilities? These accommodations are most commonly adjustments to the work schedule, the work environment, or the work duties.

I have not handled a case yet where a major employer, covered by the Americans With Disabilities Act, provides an accommodation to a 100% disabled Veteran as required by law to do. This is an interesting question as to whether or not the employment could be considered sheltered when the company has a legal obligation to enact accommodations. I am not aware of any VA precedent on this topic – if you do know of a precedential case on this topic, don’t hesitate to let me know!

2) If the employee leaves the company, will the business hire a “similarly situated” person to fill the position (i.e, another worker with a disability)?

There are 3 scenarios here:

Scenario #1: If the business plans to modify the Veteran’s position after he or she leaves so that there are no longer accommodations to the work duties, environment or schedule, then you can make a pretty good argument that the employment is sheltered. Why? Because it appears that the position may have been created or modified just for the disabled Veteran.

Scenario #2: If the business plans on continuing the accommodation, then its a pretty good argument that the position itself – and anyone that holds it – is sheltered employment. (Many employers do this for the tax advantages available to certain types of “sheltered workshops”).

Scenario #3: If the business plans to eliminate the position after the disabled Veteran leaves the job, then it is most likely “sheltered employment”.

None of the above scenarios are absolute: the more evidence you can show that an employer created a job for a 100% disabled Veteran – whether for “feel-good” reasons, tax incentives, or any other reason other than common business reasons, the stronger your case of showing that your position is “sheltered employment”.

3) Is there evidence that another business in the same industry would NOT hire a similarly situated employee, and pay them a similar income, for the same type of work?

What do I mean here?

If your family business pays you $50,000 a year, while allowing you to come in to the job “only on the days you feel up to it”, look to other businesses in the same industry to see if they would pay that same salary to an employee that comes and goes at will.

Where do you get evidence of this sort of thing?

Honestly, you would hire an economist to prepare an expert report on the nature of the employment and whether or not it is sheltered, based on a survey of the particular industry.

This type of expert report can get really expensive, so I would not typically do this unless it was really questionable whether the employment was sheltered or not, and there was a lot riding on the outcome.

Frankly, providing evidence that answers Question #3 is probably a bit “over the top” in most Sheltered Employment claims.

Legal Advice in Sheltered Employment situations.

Be VERY careful with the Sheltered Employment rules.

They are not frequently applied, many in the VA do NOT know about them (or don’t understand them when they do know about them), and the Sheltered Employment Rules can lead to serious consequences if applied incorrectly.

I’m not telling any details here, but I know of a couple Veterans who have been charged with criminal fraud for collecting TDIU benefits while getting an income and doing nominal work for a family member’s business.

These charges usually will not stick – as the US Attorneys that prosecute these crimes have far less understanding of VA regulations than even most VA raters or Board Hearing Officials.

But you’re going to have to pay a criminal defense attorney to make it go away, and the VA ain’t repaying your attorneys fees.

Being in the military everyone knows the hurry up and wait or the standing by to stand by. In this blog post Amanda Dejesus from Hill and Ponton tells about ways veteran’s claims can be expedited.
The VA is notoriously known for their long wait times and their immense backlog. This will often time leave veterans who are dealing with the VA frustrated and wanting to give up. I have heard it too many times before:

“The VA is just waiting for me to die”.

It saddens me every time I hear this. With the continuous backlog, it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.
I was in line waiting to pay for my groceries at my local grocery store when the woman in front of me turned around and stated: “hurry up and wait; that is the story of my life”. I didn’t realize that we must have been waiting in line for at least 15 minutes without moving. We ended up talking about her husband, a veteran, who also understands the struggle of the “hurry up and wait” business. She explained that her husband has been waiting several weeks for his hearing aids. She mentioned that her husband is nearly deaf without them.

The VA’s backlog is not only affecting veterans who are waiting for their hearing aids and other needed medical treatment, but also the veterans who are facing homelessness and extreme financial hardship. The good news is that there may be some light at the end of the tunnel. There are three circumstances that can qualify a veteran’s claim to be expedited or processed with priority:

Veterans who have reached advanced age – there is uncertainty in the law as to whether the age for expedite begins at age 75 years of age or 85 years of age

Providing the VA with evidence of the above circumstances will help the VA determine if a request for an expedite can be granted. However, it is very important to keep in mind that the VA does not have to grant a veteran an expedite.

Some examples ofevidence that can be provided to the VA to support a request for an expedite is as follows:

Veterans who are terminally ill:

A letter from the veteran’s doctor

Veterans who are facing extreme financial hardship:

Past due bills

Bank statements

Proof of bankruptcy

VA Form 5655: Financial Status Report. This report will show the VA how your monthly expenses exceed the veteran’s income

Veterans who are facing homelessness or who are homeless:

An eviction notice

Other proof of homelessness, living in a shelter, etc.

Veterans who have reached advanced age:

Proof of advanced age, such as a birth certificate or government ID card

Unfortunately, other than under the above circumstances, there are no other real ways to speed up the VA. The VA works on its own time schedule. For this reason, the “hurry up and wait” slogan will be attached to the VA for the foreseeable future.

Veterans who meet the criteria to request an expedite on their claim should do so. As previously stated, it is not guaranteed that the VA will grant the request. But, if all of the necessary evidence and circumstances are present, it is definitely worth a try.

The VA process can be very difficult and frustrating for our veterans in their time of distress. Every veteran’s case presented to the VA is not all the same nor are they merely similar to one another. The average VA claim case can take anywhere from two to five years.

1862 – During the Civil War, Congress passes a bill allowing the president to purchase land for national cemeteries. Between 1865 and 1870, 70 national cemeteries.

March 1991 – The VA orders Veterans Affairs Medical Center, in North Chicago, to stop performing vascular and orthopedic surgeries after the deaths of more than 40 patients in 1989 and 1990. After a review of the cases, the VA accepts responsibility for the deaths of eight patients.

1996 – President Bill Clinton orders the VA to provide benefits to Vietnam veterans who develop prostate cancer or peripheral neuropathy after a National Academy of Sciences suggests there is a link between those diseases and Agent Orange exposure.

2006 – Two teens steal a laptop computer and external hard drive containing the personal information of approximately 26 million veterans from the home of a VA data analyst. The laptop and hard drive are later recovered and FBI testing suggests that the data was never accessed. In 2009, the VA pays $20 million to settle a class action lawsuit brought by veterans.

February 2009 – The VA notifies more than 6,000 patients who went to Alvin C. York Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, that they may have been exposed to infection. Read the full list here

Question. Will submitting a NEXUS letter for PTSD, from my VA Psychologist help my NOD if I have already submitted a Nexus from my Private Psychologist for PTSD?

PTSD RELATED TO FEAR OF HOSTILE MILITARY OR TERRORIST ACTIVITY

A veteran who is diagnosed with PTSD that is related to fear of hostile military or terrorist activity does not need to provide stressor corroboration evidence as long as a VA psychologist or psychiatrist has diagnosed the PTSD and says that the stressor is related to the veteran’s fear of hostile military or terrorist activity. If a veteran’s stressor is adequate to support a diagnosis of PTSD, that stressor is consistent with the circumstances of the veteran’s service, and there is no clear and convincing evidence to the contrary, the veteran’s own statements may be used to establish the occurrence of the claimed stressor.

What is fear of hostile military or terrorist activity? The veteran must have experienced, witnessed, or been confronted with an event or circumstance that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of the vet or others, such as from an actual or potential improvised explosive device; vehicle-embedded explosive device; incoming artillery, rocket, or mortar fire; grenade; small arms fire, including suspected sniper fire; or attack upon friendly military aircraft, and the veteran’s response to the event or circumstance must have involved a psychological or psycho-physiological state of fear, helplessness, or horror.

This lower burden of proof applies to all veterans, regardless of where they experience the fear of hostile military or terrorist activity, but it does not include sexual assault or hostile criminal actions of US military personnel directed against other US military personnel. It also only applies to claims received on or pending after July 13, 2010. If a veteran has a previously denied PTSD claim, in order to reopen the claim under this lower burden of proof standard, he or she would need a lay statement of his or her fear of hostile military or terrorist activity and service records that show service in an area involving exposure to hostile military or terrorist activity.

It is important to note that while this lower burden of proof requires a diagnosis by a VA psychologist or psychiatrist, a diagnosis by a non-VA practitioner and a veteran’s statement describing an in-service stressor relating to a fear of hostile military or terrorist activity should be enough to trigger the VA’s duty to assist by scheduling a VA PTSD exam.

NOTE: If a veteran is attempting to get service connection for PTSD under this lower burden of proof standard, but the VA psychologist or psychiatrist’s opinion states that the doctor does not believe that the veteran’s PTSD is related to a fear of hostile military or terrorist activity, the veteran should attempt to gather corroborating evidence of the stressor, which another doctor can use as a basis for a medical nexus opinion under step 3.

Did the claimed stressor occur during combat?

PTSD FOR COMBAT VETERANS

Similar to veterans who were diagnosed with PTSD during service, there is a lower burden of proof for combat veterans when it comes to stressor corroboration evidence. Essentially, the VA admits that when a veteran is engaged in combat, his or her primary focus is going to be carrying out the mission, not taking notes on any and all injuries. If a veteran’s stressor is related to combat, that stressor is consistent with the circumstances of the veteran’s service, and there is no clear and convincing evidence to the contrary, the veteran’s own statements may be used to establish the occurrence of the claimed stressor.

The VA Adjudications Procedures Manual M21-1MR (available on the VA website) defines combat as “personal participation in events constituting an actual fight or encounter with a military foe or hostile unit or instrumentality. It includes presence during such events either as a combatant, or service member performing duty in support of combatants, such as providing medical care to the wounded.” Even a brief participation in combat triggers the lower burden of proof. But, depending on the circumstances, it is important to note that the veteran may have an additional hurdle in proving that he or she was in combat.

For some veterans, this is a simple task due to their military service records or military occupational specialty (MOS) and where or when they served. But for other veterans, it may not be obvious at first glance that they served in combat. For these veterans, the VA will look to not only military service records and MOS, but also certain military decorations, buddy statements, letters home to family or friends, copies of newspapers or regimental or divisional newsletters, photographs, or any other credible supporting evidence that can help to establish whether the veteran was in combat or not. If a veteran contends that he was in combat action that cannot be confirmed by his or her MOS or military service records, the VA must make a finding as to the credibility of his or her statement and provide reasons for its finding of whether the veteran engaged in combat, keeping in mind the benefit of the doubt rule.

At this stage, if a veteran states that he served in combat and identifies a stressor that is not impossible to believe, and has a current diagnosis of PTSD (see step 1), then the VA must take steps to develop evidence. The VA will look for evidence of both combat service and additional evidence that the combat stressor actually took place. It is usually a good idea for the veteran to request these records as well. Relevant service records may be found at the National Personnel Records Center, the US Army and Joint Services Records Research Center, the Marine Corps Archives and Special Collections, and the National Archives.

Once it is established that the veteran served in combat, the VA must also accept lay evidence as proof that the alleged stressor happened during combat even in the absence of official records or supporting clinical evidence. Even if the veteran does not have any other evidence that the stressor occurred other than his or her own statement, as long as there is not clear and convincing evidence to the contrary, the VA is obligated to apply the benefit of the doubt rule and accept the veteran’s own statement as proof that the stressor occurred. Go to step 3.

Is the stressor related to an in-service personal assault or trauma, including Military Sexual Trauma (MST)?

SPECIAL RULES FOR IN-SERVICE PERSONAL ASSAULT OR TRAUMA AS STRESSOR

If a veteran suffers from PTSD as a result of an in-service personal assault or trauma such as rape, physical assault, domestic battering, robbery, mugging, stalking, or harassment, the stressor can be corroborated through alternative evidence if military records do not document that a personal assault occurred. The VA has a special obligation to assist in these cases (commonly referred to as Military Sexual Trauma or MST) and must inform the veteran that evidence other than that found in service records may be submitted. Alternative sources for evidence may be things such as records from law enforcement, rape crisis centers, mental health counseling centers, hospitals, or physicians; pregnancy or STD tests; statements from family members, roommates, fellow service members, or clergy; a personal diary or journal; or evidence of behavior changes such as a request to transfer, deterioration in work performance, substance abuse, depression, panic attacks, or anxiety. Unfortunately, these cases are frequently denied, partly due to the fact that VA has difficulty compensating for disabilities that are less obvious than a physical disability, and because due to the nature of MST cases it is rare for there to be a formal report or complaint in the record. The VA often must rely on the alternative evidence listed above, and typically fails to give that evidence the weight that is required. PTSD claims in general are difficult to win, but MST claims are even tougher.

According to a June 2014 report from the Government Accountability Office, since 2008, there have been 29,000 veterans who have sought disability benefits for problems related to MST. PTSD is the most common disability claimed as a result of MST at 94 percent of claims, with major depressive disorder and anxiety disorder being the second and third most common. The overall approval rating for PTSD related to MST is up from 28 percent in 2010 to roughly 50 percent in 2013, but this is still lower than the 55 percent approval rating for other forms of PTSD (Note: According to a report by the ACLU and Service Women’s Action Network, between 2008 and 2012, the award of MST-related PTSD claims was lower than the rate of other PTSD claims by between 16.5 and 29.6 percent each year). Also of note is the wide disparity among regional offices: in some ROs as few as 14 percent of claims were approved, while other ROs approved as many as 88 percent of claims. The GAO report found that regional offices are having ongoing difficulty applying broadened MST standards and may differ wildly in their interpretations of the evidence in the claim file.

Another hurdle identified in the GAO report is the variation in the thoroughness of C&P examinations for MST claims. In fact, during the only formal training for VA examiners who are conducting MST exams, less than 5% of the one-hour certification course for PTSD examiners is devoted to MST. This goes to show that there is still a lot of work and training that needs to be done on the VA side in regards to MST claims, which can be discouraging for many veterans. But just remember that while MST claims take time, they are not impossible to win. The key is to get the VA to look at the stressor evidence in the right context in order to show, for example, a behavior change that corroborates the occurrence of the stressor. See Part Seven for a list of resources for survivors of MST.

IF NONE OF THE ABOVE APPLIES, STRESSOR CORROBORATION IS NEEDED

If a veteran’s claim for PTSD does not fit into one of the above categories, there must be evidence that corroborates the occurrence of the stressor, meaning credible supporting evidence that the claimed in-service stressor occurred. The supporting evidence must include more than the veteran’s own testimony. Unless there is no reasonable possibility that assistance by the VA would aid in substantiating the claim, the VA must assist the veteran in developing evidence that supports the existence of a stressor.

For the veteran’s service records to corroborate the stressor, they do not need to include every detail of the event. If there is independent evidence of the occurrence of a stressful event and that evidence shows the veteran’s personal exposure to the event, that could be sufficient corroborative evidence. In addition, credible supporting evidence can come from lay sources such as buddy statements.

An example of a situation in which a veteran would need stressor corroboration evidence is if he or she was in a bad car accident during service, the car accident was not related to combat, and the veteran was not diagnosed with PTSD until after leaving service. In this situation, the veteran would need to be able to corroborate that the car accident happened. This may be through a police report, hospital records, statements of the other individuals involved in the accident, or other supporting evidence. Another situation in which corroboration evidence would be required is if a veteran was involved in an accident during a non-combat situation, such as an explosion or fire. Again, hospital records, notations in service records, and statements of other persons who witnessed the explosion would be helpful corroboration evidence.

It is important to note that if a veteran’s account of an event is contradicted by official records, the VA can reject the veteran’s account, but as long as the veteran produces evidence to back up his or her story, the benefit of the doubt rule still applies.

The final step of establishing service connection for PTSD is proving a causal nexus between the current symptomatology and the claimed in-service stressor. This step requires an opinion by a medical expert. The evidence must show that the stressor was at least a contributory basis for the current symptoms. As long as there is a clear relationship between the stressor encountered in service and the current diagnosis of PTSD, a veteran whose service medical records show no evidence of a mental disorder can be entitled to service connection for PTSD, even if the PTSD develops many years after service.

Note that this step can be more complicated if a veteran has more than one stressor. For example, say a veteran was in a car accident in service in which his best friend was killed, and there are service records and hospital records backing up this stressor. The second stressor was when the vet was in his bunk and some fellow soldiers came in the room and threw a grenade at him. The grenade was a dummy, but the veteran did not know that, and he still has nightmares about it. There is no independent verification of this stressor. For the veteran to receive service connected compensation for his PTSD, the doctor would have to relate his PTSD specifically to the car accident in service because that is the only stressor with independent verification, and the second stressor does not qualify under one of the lower burden of proof situations mentioned in step 2. And remember, the VA will always send the veteran to a Compensation and Pension exam to determine if the veteran is entitled service connected disability benefits for his PTSD.

Doctors and psychiatrists categorize the symptoms of PTSD in four general groups: intrusive memories, avoidance behaviors, negative changes in thought and mood, and emotional reactions. These symptoms can significantly take a toll on one’s mental health and can even negatively affect one’s professional or social life.

Here’s a good write up of the process flow for PTSD Claims from Hill and Ponton

There are three elements needed to establish service connection for PTSD in order to receive VA benefits. First, you must have a current diagnosis of PTSD from an expert who is competent to diagnose the disorder. Second, there must be credible supporting evidence that the claimed in-service stressor actually occurred.

As you know, the recent passage of the Harry W. Colmery Educational Assistance Act of 2017, also known as the “Forever GI Bill,” enacts several changes to the GI Bill that will positively impact Veterans and their families. Some of the changes became effective the day the law was signed, some next fall, and some in the future. In the months to come, I’ll be updating you on how this new law impacts VA education benefits and what actions Veterans may need to take.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the legislation that immediately went into effect with the President’s signature, and what it means for you.

The 15-year time limitation for using Post-9/11 GI Bill – The 15-year limitation to use benefits is removed for Veterans who left active duty on or after January 1, 2013, children who became eligible for the Marine Gunnery Sergeant John David Fry Scholarship (Fry Scholarship) on or after January 1, 2013, and all Fry Scholarship eligible spouses. There is no action you need to take; if eligible, the limitation is simply removed for you.

Restoration of Benefits due to School Closure – We are now authorized to restore benefits and provide relief to Veterans affected by school closures or disapprovals. If you attended courses or programs discontinued from January 1, 2015 to August 16, 2017, and attended an accredited institution of higher learning, and did not transfer any credits to a comparable program, entitlement will not be charged for the entire period of your enrollment. The law also provides separate criteria for partial benefit restoration for school closures after January 1, 2015. To apply for restoration, we will develop a web page with instructions, information, and a form to complete and return. I will update you when this page is available, and we’ll post an announcement on our main GI Bill page and social media sites.

Independent study programs at career and technical education schools covered by GI Bill – This allows anyone eligible for GI Bill to use their benefits at an accredited independent study program at an area career and technical school, or a postsecondary vocational school providing postsecondary level education. A bit of background on this provision: before the passage of this law, most non-college degree programs weren’t approvable if any portion of it was online. This change allows those programs to be considered for approval even if some or all of the instruction is online/not in a classroom. There is no action for you to take here, as these programs will go through the normal course of approval by the appropriate State Approving Agency. Any new programs will be added to our GI Bill Comparison Tool.

Reservists who had eligibility under the Reserve Educational Assistance Program (REAP) and lost it due to sunset of the program will have that service credited toward the Post-9/11 GI Bill program – We are in the process of identifying the approximately 2,800 Reservists affected by this and will send them letters with instructions.

I will update you when the letters go out, and what to do if you did not receive a letter but feel you may be eligible for this restoration. We will also post more information on the GI Bill web and Facebook pages.

These changes will greatly benefit our nation’s Veterans by providing expanded access and opportunity to access education benefits. I will continue to update you as we work out the details of this legislation.

Personal stories from veterans, historical and political analysis from scholars and elected officials. This should be an interesting and hopefully unflinching look at the organization that was created to “To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan.”

I’ve been in the VA system since 1991 and it has been anything but smooth, I imagine many of you have had similar experiences good and bad.

I know the VA can do better, I often wonder if it isn’t a deliberate attempt to make VA fail so they can privatize and damn the veterans that fall during the process. But maybe I’m wrong, I hope so.

“VA: The Human Cost of War”

“VA: The Human Cost of War” explores what it does and how it functions, its vast size and critical importance, and its history and provenance — how and why it came into existence, how and why it has changed over time, how it has come to be broken in critical ways in recent generations and how it may be reformed going forward.

Told through a series of personal stories from veterans and intertwined with deep historical and political analysis from leading scholars and elected officials, the film illustrates the key ways in which the VA, and we as a society, fail our veterans, who, according to Department of Veterans Affairs research, continue to commit suicide at the harrowing rate of 20 veterans per day.

The program features interviews with key figures such as: Dr. David J. Shulkin, U.S. Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs; Beto O’Rourke, U.S. Representative, Texas’ 16th District, Member of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs; Paul Rieckhoff, First Lieutenant U.S. Army, Ret., Founder & CEO of IAVA; Seth Moulton, Officer Marine Corps, Ret. U.S. Representative, Massachusetts’ 6th District; Linda J. Bilmes, Daniel Patrick Moynihan Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, Harvard University; and Jean and Howard Somers, the parents of Daniel Somers, a retired Army Intelligence Officer who served during Operation Iraqi Freedom and committed suicide on June 10, 2013.

A Brief History of the VA

American Colonies

From the beginning, the English colonies in North America provided pensions for disabled veterans. The first law in the colonies on pensions, enacted in 1636 by Plymouth, provided money to those disabled in the colony’s defense against Indians. Other colonies followed Plymouth’s example.

In 1776 the Continental Congress sought to encourage enlistments and curtail desertions with the nation’s first pension law. It granted half pay for life in cases of loss of limb or other serious disability. But because the Continental Congress did not have the authority or the money to make pension payments, the actual payments were left to the individual states. This obligation was carried out in varying degrees by different states. At most, only 3,000 Revolutionary War veterans ever drew any pension. Later, grants of public land were made to those who served to the end of the war.

In 1789, with the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, the first Congress assumed the burden of paying veterans benefits. The first federal pension legislation was passed in 1789. It continued the pension law passed by the Continental Congress.

By 1808 all veterans programs were administered by the Bureau of Pensions under the Secretary of War. Subsequent laws included veterans and dependents of the War of 1812, and extended benefits to dependents and survivors.

There were 2,200 pensioners by 1816. In that year the growing cost of living and a surplus in the Treasury led Congress to raise allowances for all disabled veterans and to grant half-pay pensions for five years to widows and orphans of soldiers of the War of 1812. This term later was lengthened.

A new principle for veterans benefits, providing pensions on the basis of need, was introduced in the 1818 Service Pension Law. The law provided that every person who had served in the War for Independence and was in need of assistance would receive a fixed pension for life. The rate was $20 a month for officers and $8 a month for enlisted men. Prior to this legislation, pensions were granted only to disabled veterans.

The result of the new law was an immediate increase in pensioners. From 1816 to 1820, the number of pensioners increased from 2,200 to 17,730, and the cost of pensions rose from $120,000 to $1.4 million.

When Congress authorized the establishment of the Bureau of Pensions in 1833, it was the first administrative unit dedicated solely to the assistance of veterans.

The new Bureau of Pensions was administered from 1833 to 1840 as part of the Department of War, and from 1840 to 1849 as the Office of Pensions under the Navy Secretary. The office then was assigned to the new Department of the Interior, and renamed the Bureau of Pensions. In 1858 Congress authorized half-pay pensions to veterans’ widows and to their orphan children until they reached the age of 16.

I haven’t been to the Vet Center in a few years. My therapist there transferred and I moved to the civilian sector. The transition from one to the other was about as seamless as I could have hoped for thanks to my Vet Center therapist. She set me up for success with my new therapist and with myself. I had been in regular therapy since 1991 in California but in 1998 I moved to Missouri and a psych doc recommended I try the Vet Center.

The atmosphere and attitude was far removed from the hospital setting. I felt like even if they weren’t happy to see me they were polite enough to look like they were and I was cool with that.

It made a real difference for me, it might be worth it for you … If you are eligible (see below) and in need check for the closest Vet Center here.

Here’s a little history

The Vet Center Program was established by Congress in 1979 out of the recognition that a significant number of Vietnam era vets were still experiencing readjustment problems. Vet Centers are community based and part of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. In April 1991, in response to the Persian Gulf War, Congress extended the eligibility to veterans who served during other periods of armed hostilities after the Vietnam era. Those other periods are identified as Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, the Persian Gulf, Somalia, and Kosovo/Bosnia. In October 1996, Congress extended the eligibility to include WWII and Korean Combat Veterans. The goal of the Vet Center program is to provide a broad range of counseling, outreach, and referral services to eligible veterans in order to help them make a satisfying post-war readjustment to civilian life. On April 1, 2003 the Secretary of Veterans Affairs extended eligibility for Vet Center services to veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and on June 25, 2003 Vet Center eligibility was extended to veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and subsequent operations within the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). The family members of all veterans listed above are eligible for Vet Center services as well. On August 5, 2003 VA Secretary Anthony J. Principi authorized Vet Centers to furnish bereavement counseling services to surviving parents, spouses, children and siblings of service members who die of any cause while on active duty, to include federally activated Reserve and National Guard personnel.

Services

Readjustment counseling is a wide range of psycho social services offered to eligible Veterans, Service members, and their families in the effort to make a successful transition from military to civilian life. They include:

Individual and group counseling for Veterans, Service members, and their families

Family counseling for military related issues

Bereavement counseling for families who experience an active duty death

Veterans Center Eligibility

Any Veterans and active duty Service members, to include members of the National Guard and Reserve components, who:

Have served on active military duty in any combat theater or area of hostility*

Experienced a military sexual trauma;

Provided direct emergent medical care or mortuary services, while serving on active military duty, to the casualties of war, or;

Served as a member of an unmanned aerial vehicle crew that provided direct support to operations in a combat zone or area of hostility.

Vietnam Era veterans who have accessed care at a Vet Center prior to January 1, 2004

Vet Center services are also provided to family members of Veterans and Service members for military related issues when it is found aid in the readjustment of those that have served. This includes bereavement counseling for families who experience an active duty death.

Service in combat theater or area of hostility to include but not limited to:

Basically they would like to merge VA with TRICARE. Can’t imagine that going going well.

Congress – not consulted

Veterans Groups – not consulted

Studies Done – none

“My overarching concern is these are very dramatic changes in the way health care is delivered to veterans,” said Carrie Farmer, a senior policy researcher on military care at Rand Corp., who has conducted wide-ranging research for VA. “There haven’t been studies on what the consequences are in terms of both costs and quality of care.”

Never mind that Veterans Affairs serves a very different population with different requirements. Louis Celli, director of Veterans Affairs and rehabilitation for The American Legion raises the very real concern that a move such as this would likely shift costs unfairly onto service-connected veterans. Why does he think that? Because something very similar happened with TRICARE, retirees promised free care at base hospitals, but then TRICARE began offering insurance to use private-sector care and TRICARE beneficiaries co-pays are now on the rise.

My concerns are many, but top most is that if we are forced into private care it will go from the promise of free care to service-connected veterans to a premium/co-pay situation and then they will want us to thank them for doing such a great job keeping the co-pays low.

Remember that it is possible that the government does not have your best interests in mind and they are currently on the hunt for cost saving measures and veterans frustrated with a system they can’t or won’t fix are a ripe target for this con.

WASHINGTON – As part of its effort to expand private health care, the Department of Veterans Affairs is exploring the possibility of merging its health system with the Pentagon’s, a cost-saving measure that veterans groups say could threaten the viability of VA hospitals and clinics.

Veterans struggling with addiction have a lifeline with the VA Domiciliary and compensated work therapy, they can stop sleeping rough and get clean in a safe environment, compensated work therapy can help them get back into the routine of working and provide a little spending cash.

Temple VA’s motor pool had a different idea about those programs and it didn’t have anything to do with veterans well being. Free labor that can’t complain is a boon to corrupt officials who were running their own little kingdom right there in the Temple VA motor pool. Free labor to deliver furniture to private homes of Veterans Affairs officials, car washes for VA employees and their family members.

How much damage was done to veterans in recovery and how many veterans have we lost to relapse through this corrupt and intimidating behavior?

That wasn’t all though, on further inspection, besides robbing these veterans of their self esteem and a chance at making a better lives for themselves. They were also able to funnel 1.3 million away in phony surcharges.

Don Peace, the manager of the Temple VA’s vocational program, told investigators that working at the motor pool had done irreparable harm to the veterans who were supposed to benefit from it.

“I think it really affected the veterans … it drove their self-esteem even lower, and then their only way of dealing with it, then, was to go back and either use drugs or drinkin’,” Peace told investigators, according to a transcript of his interview. “And for those that then was working as outpatients that was no longer in the (domiciliary), then they would relapse and just quit showing up, and we would have to try to track ‘em down.”

Veterans in the work program at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Temple campus had complained about being assigned to the motor pool for years. The complaints, made by veterans undergoing drug and alcohol treatment as they tried to get their lives back on track, alleged the unit’s boss – who was in charge of the grounds crew at the motor pool – had regularly subjected them to verbal abuse and tirades.

As some of you may know there are 3 kinds of lies, lies, damn lies and statistics and the VA uses them all.

Once again we can thank a whistleblower for bring this to our attention.

Even with CHOICE in place due to the VA creating fake wait lists to make their numbers look better than they were and damn the veterans who suffer.

It continues at the Denver Veterans Affairs and we’ve lost at least one veteran that we know about.

“Rep. Mike Coffman, said in an interview that the local VA’s behavior reminded him of the 2014 VA scandal in Phoenix. Investigators there found that at least 35 patients died while waiting for care and medical staff falsified records to make it seem veterans were being seen promptly.”

“At the end of the day it’s the veterans who suffer,” said Rep. Mike Coffman

DENVER (AP) – A watchdog arm of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs said Thursday that the agency’s Denver-area hospital violated policy by keeping improper wait lists to track veterans’ mental health care. Investigators with the VA Office of Inspector General confirmed a whistleblower’s claim that staff kept unauthorized lists instead of using the department’s official wait list system.

Cholangiocarcinoma – a nasty little parasite from raw or undercooked fish showed up in at least 700 veterans over the past 15 years and a little less than half ever filed a claim for it. The VA rejected most of them in what was described as a haphazard way.

Veterans Affairs say they are studying it, but sadly if they were to make it presumptive by the time that happens, most of those veterans will be gone. The Vietnam veterans aren’t getting any younger and it looks like they continue to get the short end of the stick.

A half a century after serving in Vietnam, hundreds of veterans have a new reason to believe they may be dying from a silent bullet – test results show some men may have been infected by a slow-killing parasite while fighting in the jungles of Southeast Asia.

Have you seen HR 4457 The Veterans Empowerment Act? Employing an old marketing trick giving a name that makes it sound like something you want. I want veterans to be empowered, so why wouldn’t I support a bill with empowerment right in the tittle? The bill is not about empowering veterans, but it is about dismantling the Veterans Affairs.

In this bill, there are five tiers of Premium Support based on the disability rating of the veteran. Then there are six additional paragraphs that cover Additional Premium Support based on need or income. Instead of introducing something that is untested and that would, in effect, reduce the type and amount of care our veterans need, let’s fix our current system.

HR 4457 would remove a direct voice to the president from our veterans, eliminating the Department of Veterans Affairs, a federal cabinet agency, and replacing it with a corporation managed by 11 members.

This bill also calls for the termination of the Veterans Health Administration. Many of our veterans rely on this organization in order to maintain a standard quality of life. This bill would eliminate the basic services many of our veterans need.

Our federal government has come up with an idea in order to sleight our nation’s veterans. This is something that has been going on since we first gained independence as a sovereign nation. Of the close to 250,000 soldiers and sailors who fought in the Revolutionary War, only about 3,000 actually received a pension from our federal government.

Keeping the bills paid, the kids feed and a thousand other things you have to worry about each month, the last thing you need is for your income to disappear and then be saddled by a huge debt. If VA overpaid you they have every right to inform you and work out a repayment plan, but they should not have the right to put a family in a desperate situation because of their errors.

In the story below Daniel faces a huge burden because the Veterans Affairs sent a letter informing him of the overpayment to an address he lived at 35 years ago, he never got that letter, but he did get the demand for repayment.

“The VA’s debt management center sent Daniel a letter in 2016 stating it paid him $18,000 more than what he was “entitled to receive.” “Once I retired, I still had children and a wife, and in 2006 they said you didn’t have them anymore, according to their records,” he said. The Veterans Affairs told Daniel he never updated nor returned a dependent verification form sent to him. “They said they sent it,” he said. “I never received it, never.” When Daniel called the Veterans Affairs to question the debt, he found out the Veterans Affairs sent the dependent verification form to an address he lived at 35 years ago.”

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is sending thousands of overpayment notices telling veterans to pay back their benefits. When Navy veteran Isaac Daniel retired after 22 1/2 years of service, he qualified for disability benefits due to knee issues and near fatal intestinal problems. He started receiving monthly disability payments of $1,100 in 2006.

Jul 31, 2014 – If the VA prevails in the reduction, it appears the error made by the VA has resulted in the overpayment of thousands of dollars to the veteran. No mention of fraud by the beneficiary in this case. QUESTION: In a situation where the VA determines it has overpaid disability compensation to a veteran as a result …

Sep 21, 2007 – Terry Higgins said back on July 18, 2006. “Dear veterans & Friends. I had a VA overpayment of over thousand dollars. I went to the VBM and photo copy the letter with the regulatons that say if an overpayment occures by the VA and its not the vets fault. The VA eats it. I did not have to pay. Terry Higgins.”.

I just received my back pay for my disability claim, but I have not received my official decision letter yet. According to ebenefits I recieved 70% disability for my PTSD. The amount I received in back pay was much higher than 70% would have given me. It is the amount that 100% would have given me. I read that it might be …

Nov 6, 2015 – Could I possibly get a waiver due to the VA not processing the request to remove my daughter and me advising them that I was being overpaid and them paying her for additional months of school despite her asking to not start her pay until August 2014? Does anyone have a sample hardship letter? Please …

Aug 2, 2011 – The VA is attesting that I was overpaid for my dependents because they never received notification of my divorce. At one time, I did have documentation of the package that I sent to the VA showing that my wife and I divorced, but I no longer have this. I had the postage receipt which of course, probably …

Sep 7, 2011 – MY question then is this: does ANYONE know how to contact the VA by telephone and either. question the provenance of an electronic deposit or alternatively report an overpayment so that. it can be returned to the proper authority/department? I very much appreciate your patience and indulgence with this …

May 22, 2013 – The letter stated I recently received a letter explaining why (I never got any letter), and there has been a change in my benefits thus resulting in an overpayment. I called the VA Collection center to find out why. The have no record of a reason why, they just collect money, I called the 800-827-1000 number, …

May 25, 2010 – I am concerned here though-as to why you fear an overpayment on your pension ? I see you get 10%-do you mean you get 10% VA compensation? Or do you mean you are 10% service connected but the pension is the greater amount so you receive the pension? Is it possible that the 10% is way too low?

Nov 22, 2013 – That could impact on what I stated above,but in any event I interpret that statement in your letter as so similar to my case that I do believe VA must stop the recoupment and possibly award you retro due to overpayment of the recoupment, since they awarded SC at 100%. Hopefully others will chime in …

Sen. Kaine said, “These findings don’t enable veterans and Congress to have trust in VA’s performance. I will be asking the Veterans Affairs to provide confirmation that no veteran suffered any financial harm from these mistakes.”

I couldn’t agree more with Sen. Kane. I am finding it impossible to believe anything they cite as statistics, their track record on cooking the books is long and scandalous. It brought us the VA CHOICE program, which they cannot seem to manage.

Veterans Affairs Office of the Inspector General for the third time in seven years determined the Roanoke VA Regional Office mishandled veterans’ disability claims.

Auditors found the appeals staff closed case files by claiming veterans with multiple appeals withdrew some of their claims when they had not. Staff then merged all of a veteran’s claims into the oldest case file, which made it more difficult to process each issue, but boosted the Roanoke office’s clearance rate and placed appeals managers in line for bonuses. Read the Full Article

ROANOKE – The Veterans Affairs Office of the Inspector General for the third time in seven years determined the Roanoke VA Regional Office mishandled veterans’ disability claims. Auditors found the appeals staff closed case files by claiming veterans with multiple appeals withdrew some of their claims when they had not.

Do you trust the VA to discuss medical marijuana? Many veterans don’t, VA docs can’t prescribe, they can, it says, discuss how it might interact with other medications or how it might effect pain management or PTSD symptoms.

VA providers are still NOT permitted to refer veterans to state-approved medical marijuana programs, since the drug is illegal under federal law, with no accepted medical use.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” is how many veterans have approached health care conversations about marijuana use with the doctors they see from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Worried that owning up to using the drug could jeopardize their VA benefits – even if they’re participating in a medical marijuana program approved by their state – veterans have often kept mum.

A year ago, when president-elect Donald Trump announced Senator Jeff Sessions would be his attorney general, advocates for marijuana law reform were suddenly seized with panic. The longtime Alabama senator, they knew, had once joked that he considered the Klan to be OK guys until he found out they smoked pot.

HadIt.com Veteran to Veteran 21st Anniversary. Tbird, founder of HadIt.com will be the guest and talk about the history of HadIt.com and will take calls from veterans.

A little history …

HadIt.com Veteran to Veteran the website domain registered Jan 20, 1997. The domain is registered and paid for thru Jan 21, 2023 at which time I plan to register it for another 15 years, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.

I guess the best place to start is Jan 1991; I had gotten out of the navy Dec 1990. At my separation seminar, there was a DAV rep Jim Milton who told us to bring our medical records in and he would look through them for us and let us know if we should file a claim with Veterans Affairs.

Well, bless his heart, he opened my medical file, read the first insert, looked me straight in the eye, and said, “You will be 50% for the rest of your life” and that he would file the claim for me. 50% was for surgery I had in the service. True to his word, he met with me and talked with me for a long time, filled out my paper work and urged me to file for PTSD. I would not file the PTSD claim, nor even discuss it. I didn’t even understand what PTSD was then.

By Feb 1991 I had moved to the San Francisco bay area and was staying at a friend’s apartment and pretty much was just a puddle. In desperation one night I called the suicide hotline. I had no job, no idea about going to the VA. They talked with me for a long time and explained to me that I could go to the local VA hospital even if I did not have insurance. Now I know what you are thinking, if I was 50% why didn’t I just go to the VA in the first place? Two reasons, 1st, this was Feb 1991 and the 50% didn’t come till May and secondly, even if it had come thru it is unlikely that I would have had the mental acuity at the time to put the two together.

I relay this here because it is where so many of our brothers and sisters are coming from, perhaps where you started. Fuzzy and unsure, in pain and sometimes homeless they come to the VA hospital for help. And that is where I ended up. Up to the pysch ward I went, blah, blah, blah, a few days later I was released with a promise of a call from the out-patient program, which I would soon be entering. Blah, blah, blah, after many miscommunications, and no call backs, I was at the Day Hospital everyday M-F. And this brothers and sisters is where I began to learn and formulate my plan for HadIt.com.

Veterans, veterans everywhere…I spent a year in the day hospital and about another year at a sheltered workshop before I got back on my feet. So I just talked to veterans everyday, waiting for appointments, waiting for prescriptions, waiting for a vet rep and I started to learn about the system.

While in the navy, I was a data analyst. I had to learn a 5 volume manual and just about anything you were suppose to do was in that manual. So I figured there must be a manual on how to do a VA claim or at the very least, regulations. So I found out about the Code of Federal Regulations, United States Code, Veterans Affairs Manuals and so on and so forth. Of course this was 1991/1992, I was living in a tiny studio apartment in a particularly bad neighborhood, working in a sheltered workshop where I earned a nickel per envelope I stuffed, throw in PTSD and you will see that it was a difficult task for me to get somewhere where they had copies of these, let alone that they would let me look at them. There was so much knowledge around me, it was
like the gold rush in those days. I could just sit on a bench where a veteran would sit down next to me, a little conversation later I had another nugget. I made copious notes. Phone numbers to call, ask for this guy or that guy, he’ll give you the straight scoop and they’d slip me a piece of paper with a number on it. You want to read this regulation or that one and another slip of paper into my hand. I spent a lot of time on those benches watching the squirrels as they gathered their nuts and I gathered mine 🙂

So I’m thinking I could put a little handbook together, print it out and hand it out at the VA. Or perhaps flyers. Still formulating, time goes by, 1994/1995 I am being treated for PTSD regularly and doing and feeling much better. I go to work for a company as a marketing systems analyst and I discover the internet. Well let me tell you, that was perhaps one of the most significant life changing events I have ever experienced. And I might add finally a positive one 🙂 It seemed only natural to me that surely there must be a website that contained all the knowledge I wanted. As it turned out,not so much. Lots of stuff, but I wanted to get straight to the claims information and there was a lot of stuff to wade through to get to it. So taking my lesson from the squirrels earlier I started to gather, gather, gather. I learned html and worked as a marketing systems analyst and worked on my claim. 1996/1997 a major ptsd cork blows and unemployment follows. Working my claim, working the website. January 20th, 1997 I register the HadIt.com domain name right after getting off the phone with the Veterans Affairs and saying, “I’ve had it with this”. As fate would have it, the old DAV board went down just as mine opened up and folks start to wander in.

So HadIt.com has two main components, the website and the the discussion board with links, articles, research resources etc. that support it. The website starts to grow, I can’t tell you how many times I had to switch servers for space and features. Emotionally I continue on a downward trend and in 1998 ended up back home in St Louis living in my sisters basement in therapy and working hard on pulling myself back up. The website continued to do great during this time, I just stayed in the basement, bought new software, new books, and learned how to make things work and I continued to use this knowledge to make HadIt.com better.

My 100% finally came through from the Veterans Affairs. I have a friend Patrick Heavy who is an advocate who helped me thru my SSDI claim. He was literally at my side through the entire process. For him I am grateful. My therapist and sister continued to try to get me to leave the basement, but to no avail. At some point in 1998 or 1999 I put a counter on the website and was shocked to discover how many visitors we were getting. Time goes by, my sister gets married and I move from the basement to the upstairs. There is much celebration that Aunt T is living in the light again. More time goes by and I settle into my life in St Louis and spend more time on the site trying new things and finding more information. 2003 I bought my own home with my VA loan. For years now I have just considered HadIt.com my purpose in life. And so goes the story of the conception and birth of Hadit.com. At 21 years old, she is established and going strong, I couldn’t be more pleased or proud. Thank you to everyone who has supported her growth.

Share Tweet Share I founded HadIt.com on Jan 20, 1997. I entered the VA system early in 1991 after separating from the Navy in Dec 1990. I actually had the idea to create something before I discovered the internet in 1994/1995. With the internet I realized I can do so much more than any […]

Giving veterans choices about their care is something we can all get behind. Dismantling VA in lieu of private care will hurt todays veterans and tomorrows veterans.

Lots of veterans have good solid reasons for hating the VA for medical care, and there are tons more that love their care.

For years they have talked about the great debt we are owed and the state of the art care we receive. It’s time for them to pay that debt and provide us the care they say we deserve.

Farming us out to private care may not be the best thing for veterans in the long term, though short term it may seem like a great solution.

“Our view is that Congress and the administration must fix what is wrong with the VA health care system — improve hiring authorities, expand and fix its aging infrastructure, improve access, customer service — and not just simply turn to the private sector when VA facilities are having problems,” said Carlos Fuentes, director of the National Legislative Service at Veterans of Foreign Wars.

WASHINGTON – When confirmation hearings for the next Veterans Affairs secretary begin in a few weeks, privatization of the department will be the main focus of most lawmakers’ questions. Nearly everyone in the veterans community and on Capitol Hill is against privatizing VA – and nearly everyone has a different definition of what privatization is.

Deeply concerned about the number of military veterans who take their own lives at rates higher than that of the general population, the nation’s largest organization of wartime veterans established a Suicide Prevention Program under the supervision of its TBI/PTSD standing committee, which reports to the national Veterans Affairs & Rehabilitation Commission.

The TBI/PTSD Committee reviews methods, programs and strategies that can be used to treat traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In order to reduce veteran suicide, this committee seeks to influence legislation and operational policies that can improve treatment and reduce suicide among veterans, regardless of their service eras.

This white paper report examines recent trends in veteran suicide and their potential causes and recommends steps to address this public health crisis.

Since 2001, the U.S. military has been actively engaged in combat operations on multiple continents in the Global War on Terror.More than 3 million Americans have served in Iraq or Afghanistan through the first 17 years of the war. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have become known as the “signature wounds” of the war, and in recent years, countless studies, articles and reports have documented an inordinately high suicide rate among those who have come home from the war, those of previous war eras and among active-duty personnel.

The American Legion is deeply concerned by the high suicide rate among service- members and veterans, which has increased substantially since 2001.1 The suicide rate among 18-24-year-old male Iraq and Afghanistan veterans is particularly troubling, having risen nearly fivefold to an all-time high of 124 per 100,000, 10 times the national average. A spike has also occurred in the suicide rate of 18-29-year-old female veterans, doubling from 5.7 per 100,000 to 11 per 100,000.2 These increases are startling when compared to rates of other demographics of veterans, whose suicide rates have stayed constant during the same time period.